Chuck Sweeny: Cheri Bustos expects close rematch in 2014

Thursday

Sep 26, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 26, 2013 at 5:18 PM

The 2014 election in the 17th Congressional District of Illinois will be an exciting one. That’s not coming from the challenger, former congressman Bobby Schilling, a Colona Republican. It’s what U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-E. Moline, is telling her supporters in a fundraising email, a copy of which I received.

Chuck Sweeny

The 2014 election in the 17th Congressional District of Illinois will be an exciting one. That’s not coming from the challenger, former congressman Bobby Schilling, a Colona Republican. It’s what U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-E. Moline, is telling her supporters in a fundraising email, a copy of which I received.

Citing a poll by her former employer, the Quad-City Times, which shows the race between Bustos and Schilling is close, Bustos wrote, “We always knew this was going to be a tough race — Illinois’ 17th District is one of the most competitive House seats in the entire country.

“With our campaigns neck and neck, this is definitely no time to sit back and relax. National Republicans and their special interest friends will stop at nothing to take this seat back.

“We can’t let that happen, Chuck. Will you chip in $3 right now to help us take on Mr. Schilling and his Tea Party backers?”

In the 2012 election, Bustos defeated Schilling 53 percent to 47 percent. Both the national GOP and the national Democrats have targeted this race as crucial to win in for 2014.

I admit I was against the roundabout going in at North Main and Auburn streets. Even wrote a column about it. But now that they’ve spent $10 million building it, I hope it will lead to improvement in that long neglected shopping and entertainment district — half of which was removed for the road project.

Roundabouts are the new thing around here. In Wisconsin, roundabouts are replacing four-way stops. Once you get used to them, they are not hard to negotiate, although I’ve never tackled more than a one-lane roundabout, of which we now have three in Winnebago County. When the Auburn-Main roundabout is open to both lanes at the end of October, we’ll see how good we are at navigating these things.

Multi-lane roundabouts are common in Europe — the one at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is an eight-lane monster — but at least on this continent, traffic drives on the right. In the UK, roundabouts are the most common form of intersection, but because they drive on the left, all my reflexes tell me to do the opposite of what I’m supposed to do. I take trains and buses when I’m there.

Congratulations to city public works chief Tim Hanson and all the construction workers who worked hard to get the project done in a timely manner. Hanson, who comes from the private sector (UPS), is strongly oriented toward serving the customer, in this case the taxpayers of Rockford. He posts frequently on Facebook, informing people on the status of public works projects, complete with pictures he takes.

All elected and appointed officials can learn from the example Hanson sets. Maybe he could put on seminars.

Roundabouts in the UK and Europe nearly always feature flowers and manicured shrubbery. Some have statues or sculptures in the middle. I strongly suggest we do something similar at Auburn and Main.

“We have a special branding coming for this roundabout! I think you will like it!” said Hanson on Facebook. However, the statue of the Civil War soldier won’t be moved from the northeast corner of Auburn and Main for now, Hanson said.